Susan Rice: On second thought, there was no protest before the Benghazi attack

posted at 2:41 pm on November 27, 2012 by Allahpundit

Does this mean it’s no longer racist to oppose her nomination as Secretary of State? Or, since she’s now admitting her mistake, does this mean it’s really racist to oppose her nomination as Secretary of State?

I’m sure the left will tell us when the time is right.

Today, Acting CIA Director Michael Morell and I met with Senators McCain, Graham, and Ayotte to discuss my September 16th public comments regarding the attack against the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, and the intelligence assessments that formed the basis for those comments. I appreciated the opportunity to discuss these issues directly and constructively with them.

In the course of the meeting, we explained that the talking points provided by the intelligence community, and the initial assessment upon which they were based, were incorrect in a key respect: there was no protest or demonstration in Benghazi. While we certainly wish that we had had perfect information just days after the terrorist attack, as is often the case, the intelligence assessment has evolved. We stressed that neither I nor anyone else in the Administration intended to mislead the American people at any stage in this process, and the Administration updated Congress and the American people as our assessments evolved.

The Administration remains committed to working closely with Congress as we thoroughly investigate the terrorist attack in Benghazi and bring to justice the terrorists responsible for the tragic deaths of our colleagues, Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. We also look forward to the findings of the Accountability Review Board and the FBI investigation.

The White House press corps got Carney to say the magic words this afternoon too. For what it’s worth, Rice’s statement does jibe with what U.S. intel officials told the Wall Street Journal last month about what she knew and when. If you believe them, the first intelligence inklings that the whole “protest” storyline was crapola came on the evening of Saturday, September 15th, hours before Rice appeared on the Sunday shows to talk Benghazi. That Sunday morning, while she was making the rounds on TV, they collected more intel further debunking the protest claims. But then that raises other questions, which the Journal framed at the time:

Unanswered in the account is whose role it was to prevent Ms. Rice from broadcasting information that already risked being wrong. Also unanswered is why it took longer for the new information to come out publicly, even after the DNI revised its assessment.

Let me throw another one at you. Why was U.S. intelligence still leaning towards the protest theory on Sunday, September 16th, when a Libyan guard who was wounded in the consulate attack had already told McClatchy three days earlier that there had never been any protest? All they had to do was read the newspaper that Friday to realize the narrative they were handing Rice was in doubt. And here’s a fourth question, which I believe remains unanswered even now: How did the idea that there had been a protest over the Mohammed movie at the consulate get started in the first place? Was it just a matter of U.S. intel officials watching what happened in Cairo and blindly leaping to the conclusion that the same thing must have happened in Benghazi or was there actual circumstantial evidence of a protest at some point? The only evidence I’ve heard of after months of reading about this came from an AP story on October 27, in which an eyewitness claimed that one of the jihadis at the scene had pressured bystanders to chant about the movie while his crew was busy setting up roadblocks for the attack. The “spontaneous protest,” in other words, was propaganda manufactured by terrorists at the scene as the plot was being put in motion, but maybe the CIA heard about the chanting from another eyewitness and hadn’t yet figured out who was behind it when Rice was briefed. Is that the explanation? Or, as I say, was this pure half-assed guesswork early on, which they nonetheless dutifully passed along to Susan Rice for dissemination on America’s news shows?

Update: Jay Carney’s sick and tired of Obama’s flacks and mouthpieces being beaten up by the press, darn it:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney grew testy with reporters Tuesday over questions about UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s role in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack.

“What is the point of the focus on this,” Carney asked of questions about Rice’s comments on the five Sunday shows days after the September 11, 2012 attack that killed four Americans signaling it was a spontaneous event. “It could have been me. We all relied on information from the intelligence community.”…

“What your question seems to suggest is that it is more important that I or others used talking points provided by the intelligence community than actually what happened in Benghazi,” Carney said.

Over in the Greenroom, Duane Patterson has some questions for the administration’s much-maligned spokespeople.

Blowback

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“What is the point of the focus on this,” Carney asked of questions about Rice’s comments on the five Sunday shows days after the September 11, 2012 attack that killed four Americans signaling it was a spontaneous event. “It could have been me. We all relied on information from the intelligence community.”…

Why was the CIA still leaning towards the protest theory on Sunday, September 16th, when a Libyan guard who was wounded in the consulate attack had already told McClatchy three days earlier that there had never been any protest?

Because Lietraeus Petraeus wanted to spin his usual lies and self-delusions of Muslims only killing because of disrespect for the Koran, or as he calls it “The Holy Qur’an”.

Didn’t the knowledge that Sean Smith told his online friends that a Libyan policeman was taking pictures of the compound the night before known immediately after the attack? Enough of this “The intelligence said”. The actual intelligence said otherwise.

As the former Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura once said “never tell a lie they are to hard to remember”.

The Sexist and Racist Defense.

The essential of a defense on the basis of race and or gender is a believe that one needs to be defended because of their race and gender and their actions and beliefs need to be mitigated and accepted within these limits.

To except inappropriate action of an individual on the basis of race or gender, is the acceptance of such action from all individuals of similar race and gender. The inability to separate the actions from the race and gender is the real prejudice.

Arguably there are social norms within a cultural group that may not be acceptable to another. Once you reach a significant level of public office that argument is nullified.

At the original 9/11 in NYC, if you knew someone who worked at the Twin Towers and wanted to make him disappear, you could easily accomplish that at the time and the automatic reasoning would be that he was at work and his body was never found in the rubble, etc, etc.

Something chilling tells me that Christopher Stevens might have been eliminated using the false pretense of a consulate protest.

The cover up continues and more lies are thrown out there every day to see what sticks to the proverbial wall! The Butcher of Benghazi is still stalling all investigations into his TREASON, in arming Al-Qaeda, while his co-conspirators, the eSTABrepubs/rinos, keep up the dog & pony show, while the American People are told they have to Surrender Like the French and accept whatever the Traitor-in-chief tells you! As is Marxist custom, who you gonna believe, the Marxist Messiah or your lying eyes?

Incredible the contortions they are doing to support Susan Rice’s lie. Read where they say they didn’t know for sure their was no demostrations till Sat. 9/15, 4 days later. Such bullsh*t, all they had to do was call and ask one of the survivors the night of 9/11 (which they did). Further, no demostrators have ready to use RPG rocket launchers. Do they think we are morons, well I guess yes, to feed us this crap.

Truth, the reason Rice lied to america on 9/16, was to support Obamasatan’s campaign meme that Al Queda was finished. They couldn’t admit in a close election the truth. Went against everything they had been saying.

Now you see these wimp republicans retreating. You have obama by the gonads and instead your playing nice.

Ya’ll are missing something.
According to the State Department, Benghazi was not even a legit Consulate office.
There would be NO demonstration at a non-descript compound in Benghazi.
What was really going on in Benghazi?
I vote gun running to the Syrians and a CIA rendition prison.
Lying liars lie.
War is coming…be prepared

“What is the point of the focus on this,” Carney asked of questions about Rice’s comments on the five Sunday shows days after the September 11, 2012 attack that killed four Americans signaling it was a spontaneous event. “It could have been me. We all relied on information from the intelligence community.”…

All I know is that if I was sent out into the world with fake, garbage talking points ABOUT THE DEATHS OF FOUR AMERICANS I would be spitting nails and heading the pitchfork and torch brigade to find out who is responsible.

But that’s just me. I don’t like being used as a useful idiot and left to swing in the wind. Plus, there’s the matter of the FOUR DEAD AMERICANS that needs to be cleared up.

Do the race-mongers not get that their screeches of racism only prove they are racists? Rather than the targets of their faux-outrage?

They are unable to see Susan Rice as the Ambassador to the UN. No, they see her as a black woman.

Take the utter fool, Chris Matthews, he of the 2 screws loose. Every time he freely labels criticism of someone racist, it only proves that he sees the subject of the criticism as black. He can’t get past the color of their skin. Himself, not the targets of his spewed vitriol.

The same for the rest of them. There is nothing even approaching racism in any of the comments criticizing Susan Rice’s behavior, yet her defenders don’t go to the merits, because they, not others, can’t see past the color of her skin.

But, they don’t get it. They don’t get that, in attempting to brand others, they are only branding themselves.

“What is the point of the focus on this,” Carney asked of questions about Rice’s comments on the five Sunday shows days after the September 11, 2012 attack that killed four Americans signaling it was a spontaneous event. “It could have been me. We all relied on information from the intelligence community.”…

Which 10 years ago was considered lying by the left.

Flange on November 27, 2012 at 2:51 PM

Nice pickup. Somewhere GWB is scratching his head.

Of course, none of those slugs sitting there listening to Carney had the stones to say anything or ask a useful question.

And the man falsely accused of being the source of the outrage that didn’t happen? Oh, yeah, he is still in prison and will have a target on his back because of this Administration and Amb. Rice’s saying that HIS VIDEO was the cause of the PROTEST that didn’t happen.

Remember: de adults, dey are in charge!

Which is now parsed out to: the adult inmates are now in charge of the asylum.

Has anyone asked “Ambassador Susan Rice” when she started attending “Liars Anonymous” or when she plans to start? It’s tough being deluded to such an extent that you can’t even report a lie “accurately”.

The problem with telling a LIE is that you have to keep telling them to make the first one stand.

S. Rice has set a new lowdown and incredibly incompetent standard.

Have another martini, Ambassador S. Rice. Have several. You’ve got nothing left to lose.

“Awww, you’ve gone to the finest schools but you only got
juiced in it,

Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the street but you know you gotta get
used to it…”

If there was no protest, does that mean that they weren’t protesting video? If so, they must arrange to have jailed filmmaker released from prison.
They spent $70,000 on ad to apologize for video? Who started the lie and why?

The persistent backstory is he was set up to be kidnapped and used as a trade-off for the blind shiek. Very likely would have been around 30 kidnapped had Glen Doherty and Ty Woods not gone full throttle for 7 hours.

In the course of the meeting, we explained that the talking points provided by the intelligence community, and the initial assessment upon which they were based, were incorrect in a key respect

So how does a “community” provide talking points? Through their interaction with the liaison to the chief community organizer and his outreach to other communities and their various interested participants in the governing process?

Did they utilize all of the resources that were currently available to said community?

GOP Senators and House members need to always remind everyone that Amb. Stevens was brutally sodomized before he was killed; give the American public that vision then ask why the WH wanted to cover up the facts of who did this?

The persistent backstory is he was set up to be kidnapped and used as a trade-off for the blind shiek. Very likely would have been around 30 kidnapped had Glen Doherty and Ty Woods not gone full throttle for 7 hours.

All timed for the election.

DanMan on November 27, 2012 at 3:23 PM

So, our govt agreed to have a US ambassador kidnapped by our enemies, helped facilitate it, elected to not rescue him when things got out of hand, and repeatedly lied about it afterwards to cover their own asses?

And Obama has the audacity to claim that he got the american peoples back.

Or does he mean that he got them back for all the ills he perceives they have done to the world?

Has anyone asked “Ambassador Susan Rice” when she started attending “Liars Anonymous” or when she plans to start? It’s tough being deluded to such an extent that you can’t even report a lie “accurately”.

The problem with telling a LIE is that you have to keep telling them to make the first one stand.

S. Rice has set a new lowdown and incredibly incompetent standard.

Have another martini, Ambassador S. Rice. Have several. You’ve got nothing left to lose.

“Awww, you’ve gone to the finest schools but you only got
juiced in it,

Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the street but you know you gotta get
used to it…”

Lourdes on November 27, 2012 at 3:21 PM

LIARS U – Obama, Hillary, Rice, Joe – all of them graduates….
as well as most of the democratic party……
Remember George Washington – “I cannot tell a lie”….
The democrats only tell lies.

as anyone asked “Ambassador Susan Rice” when she started attending “Liars Anonymous” or when she plans to start? It’s tough being deluded to such an extent that you can’t even report a lie “accurately”.

I twist the truth, I rule the world, my crown is called deceit
I am the Emperor of Lies, yet you grovel at my feet.
I rob you and I slaughter you, your downfall is my gain
And still you play the sycophant while you revel in your pain.
All my promises are mortal lies, all my love is earthly hate
I am the supreme politician — and I decide your fate.

Why was Ambassador Stevens lingering out there on 9/11???? What was the plan? Why was he in Benghazi, with no security? Was he sold out? Ignored? Part of a larger plan? What was it? There is far far more to this than what this gal knew and didn’t know and a whole lot of political energy is being used up pursuing her on the rabbit trail.

the left is proudly proclaiming that “nobody cares about Benghazi”. That is so utterly cold-hearted it make me want America to fail.

earlgrey133 on November 27, 2012 at 3:30 PM

It’s the LEFT who “doesn’t care about Benghazi.” THEY DON’T “CARE”.

I wonder if those four Americans killed were Black, it they’d “care” then.

Oh, wait, they don’t care about the taking of the lives of millions upon millions of their own, defenseless children so, I doubt even four adult Black Americans who lost their lives at Benghazi would matter to them, either.

I THINK the key objective for the Left is ruining the credibility of the U.S., and now they’re onto the “Intelligence community” stage — which is instrumental in ruing the military’s credibility and purpose (and thus, ruined, would allow the Left an even easier access to defunding our defense and related).

The Left only “cares” about ruining the U.S. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t all be out in such record numbers pillaging just about everything they can. Look around you…

Does this mean it’s no longer racist to oppose her nomination as Secretary of State?
– POSTED AT 2:41 PM ON NOVEMBER 27, 2012 BY ALLAHPUNDIT

Sure, I mean how could anyone think race is a component in all of this. What is there to back up such a theory?
Why they were just as harsh with Eric Holder on the F&F hysteria as they are with Susan Ri….
Nevermind.
Well, the vitriol directed at Holder and Rice is no more intense then when similar questions were raised about the competence and honesty of….um….ah, let’s see…um…
Obama?
Ok…ok…but then they also insisted Van Jones was an incompetent fool and…
dang!
You certainly can’t say that anyone’s unfairly maligned Valerie Jarret.
Lots of respect for her right here at HA.

….We stressed that neither I nor anyone else in the Administration intended to mislead the American people at any stage in this process, and the Administration updated Congress and the American people as our assessments evolved…..

I find it very hard to believe Ambassador Rice. It would take what Hillary Clinton once called a “willing suspension of disbelief” to buy that the Obama Administration WASN’T trying to mislead the public.

I am a partisan, I am angry with this, and some say there are Watergate type conspiratorial intentions here, to subvert the public from knowing the truth about Benghazi, along with a willing and corrupt media to keep it out of the papers until Far Off in the Future, to protect President Obama’s presidential campaign so he could just say “It isn’t appropriate to answer” even the simplest factual answer about it because it is under investigation.

And he conspired with Candy Crowly to stymie Mitt Romney’s observations about the terrorist aspects of the 9-11 attack in combination with the president ignoring the terrorism and going off to campaign and fundraise, Romney was told in the debate he had it all wrong,and Candy conveniently had some document Obama wanted her to read to counter Romney; and during those 4 days after 9-11, every single media concern was over Romney’s criticism, NOT the terrorism itself…well because we republicans were saying it was a 911 terrorist attack, and the Obama administration was running around on all the tv channels saying there was a Video a Video! Mrs. Clinton read foolish anti-video speeches and cut advertising for the third world saying that the American government didn’t make that video…you know, the one that didn’t matter anyway. AND there were more riots about the video because Obama and Hilary kept talking about it. Here on Hot Air we were never fooled. We saw the media announce that Romney had had the worst campaign week ever of any candidate! Beleaguered Romney doesn’t know anything about foreign policy, and mr. Smart killed Osama Bin Laden, and Al Queda is on the run.

Sure, I mean how could anyone think race is a component in all of this. What is there to back up such a theory?
Why they were just as harsh with Eric Holder on the F&F hysteria as they are with Susan Ri….
Nevermind.
Well, the vitriol directed at Holder and Rice is no more intense then when similar questions were raised about the competence and honesty of….um….ah, let’s see…um…
Obama?
Ok…ok…but then they also insisted Van Jones was an incompetent fool and…
dang!
You certainly can’t say that anyone’s unfairly maligned Valerie Jarret.
Lots of respect for her right here at HA.

verbaluce on November 27, 2012 at 3:41 PM

Have you *NOTICED* they’re all Black, and all “Black with racially motivated goals and complaints”?

That reality would deflate anyone’s use of “you’re a racist” attack on anyone else “criticising” any of those, that they’re the racialists with racialist ideas, complaints and desires to ruin others based upon…race and racial “variation” from theirs.

It’s like when people such as Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg says she wants “an all female Supreme Court.”

She’s a female with strident biased views based upon her own gender.

Same thing applies to people who are stridently racialist as to their own race and then accuse everyone else of other races of being some sort of enemy…who “should be excluded” if not harmed and worse.

The ACTUAL racism is originating wiht those people you listed who Obama “has surrounded himself with”.

I find it very hard to believe Ambassador Rice. It would take what Hillary Clinton once called a “willing suspension of disbelief” to buy that the Obama Administration WASN’T trying to mislead the public.

Does this mean it’s no longer racist to oppose her nomination as Secretary of State? Or, since she’s now admitting her mistake, does this mean it’s really racist to oppose her nomination as Secretary of State?

It doesn’t matter, no matter what the scenario if it involves a white republican male, (especially if he comes from the south), it’s racism. If you’re winning an argument against a liberal, it’s because you’re a racist. If there’s an (R) after your name, it stands for racist. It’s a broad net they’ve cast.

We all know that the reason they weren’t more cautious on the Sunday programs is that they knew the media would cover for them and that the public probably wouldn’t care. Largely they were right about both.

Sure, I mean how could anyone think race is a component in all of this. What is there to back up such a theory?
Why they were just as harsh with Eric Holder on the F&F hysteria as they are with Susan Ri….
Nevermind.
Well, the vitriol directed at Holder and Rice is no more intense then when similar questions were raised about the competence and honesty of….um….ah, let’s see…um…
Obama?
Ok…ok…but then they also insisted Van Jones was an incompetent fool and…
dang!
You certainly can’t say that anyone’s unfairly maligned Valerie Jarret.
Lots of respect for her right here at HA.

verbaluce on November 27, 2012 at 3:41 PM

You are being pretty selective on who has been targeted here at HA.
Chu, Salazaar, Geitner et al have taken a beating here as well as those you chose to highlight.
Why have you selected to only talk of folks of color ?